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Bill changing CHC board from ‘advisory’ to ‘governing’ heads to Fitial
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Posted on May 04 2012
CEO tells lawmakers: I will ask governor to veto it
By Haidee V. Eugenio
Reporter
Reporter
By a vote of 17-2, the House of Representatives passed yesterday afternoon a Senate bill that would change the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.’s “advisory” board to a “governing” one, but CHC chief executive officer Juan N. Babauta told lawmakers that he will ask Gov. Benigno R. Fitial to veto the measure.
Senate Bill 17-80 now goes to the governor for action.
“I adamantly oppose that. I will ask the governor to veto that legislation. That’s for the record,” Babauta told members of the House Ways and Means Committee during a budget hearing on CHC’s fiscal year 2013 budget yesterday.
The House had to pass SB 17-80 as part of a compromise with the Senate that paved the way for the passage of another bill-one that authorizes the Marianas Public Land Trust to provide up to $11.58 million revolving line of credit/loan to CHC. That measure, HB 17-278, is now with the governor after the Senate passed it on Tuesday on Rota.
Of the 19 House members present during yesterday’s session, Reps. Froilan Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) and Ray Tebuteb (R-Saipan) voted “no” to SB 17-80. Rep. Fred Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) was absent.
Tenorio said he didn’t even like the law that turned the government hospital into a corporation but he didn’t have anything to do with it because it was passed during the previous Legislature. He said turning the CHC board into a “governing” one instead of an “advisory” would just make things “worse.”
“It’s going to get worse. At least with the current system, one person makes the decision, the CEO. With a governing board, the CEO would just follow what the governing board wants. Babauta is the most experienced when it comes to managing a health corporation. At present, leave it [board] as it is,” Tenorio told Saipan Tribune.
The former governor and speaker said he will soon introduce a bill that would repeal Public Law 16-51, which turned the Department of Public Health into a corporation, and bring it back to the government.
